Fresh from this morning’s release of a new preview of the next adventure for the Eighth Doctor comes news about one of his most popular Big Finish stories. The Chimes of Midnight and Spare Parts, both originally released in 2002, are to be re-issued on vinyl this October and next April respectively.
Each story is limited to a run of 500 copies and both feature four discs. They both recently topped a listeners’ poll of Big Finish’s main range Doctor Who stories, with The Chimes of Midnight coming first.
The Chimes of Midnight was written by Robert Shearman, directed by Barnaby Edwards and starred Paul McGann and India Fisher alongside Louise Rolfe, Lennox Greaves, Sue Wallace, Robert Curbishley and Juliet Warner.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring…
But something must be stirring. Something hidden in the shadows. Something which kills the servants of an old Edwardian mansion in the most brutal and macabre manner possible. Exactly on the chiming of the hour, every hour, as the grandfather clock ticks on towards midnight.
Trapped and afraid, the Doctor and Charley are forced to play detective to murders with no motive, where even the victims don’t stay dead. Time is running out.
And time itself might well be the killer…
Spare Parts has been described as being to the Cybermen what Genesis of the Daleks is to the Daleks. It was written by Marc Platt, directed by Gary Russell and starred Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton with Sally Knyvette, Pamela Binns, Derren Nesbitt, Kathryn Guck and Nicholas Briggs.
On a dark frozen planet where no planet should be, in a doomed city with a sky of stone, the last denizens of Earth’s long-lost twin will pay any price to survive, even if the laser scalpels cost them their love and hate and humanity.
And in the mat-infested streets, around tea-time, the Doctor and Nyssa unearth a black market in second-hand body parts and run the gauntlet of augmented police and their augmented horses.
And just between the tramstop and the picturehouse, their worst suspicions are confirmed: the Cybermen have only just begun, and the Doctor will be, just as he always has been, their saviour…
Both stories are currently available to pre-order for £79, with the price rising to £89 after release. Each will sport new artwork from Tom Webster, though Spare Parts’ has yet to be unveiled.
